The Sonic Atelier #9 – A Conversation with Arnold Kasar
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, a series dedicated to examining the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators navigate hybrid identities across composition, performance, production, and technological craft.
This interview features Arnold Kasar, German composer, pianist, producer, and mastering engineer, whose work spans improvisation, ambient sound worlds, classical heritage, and studio-based experimentation. Moving fluidly between the piano, prepared piano techniques, and digital production environments, Kasar constructs musical landscapes where acoustic gesture, electronic texture, and spatial depth coexist as a single expressive field.
In the conversation, Kasar reflects on improvisation as the generative core of his practice, on the piano as both an instrument and a source of raw sonic material, and on the studio as an expanded compositional space. He discusses the continuum between writing, producing, and mixing; the role of technology as a creative partner; and the influence of spatial audio, room acoustics, and Dolby Atmos on his musical language. The interview also touches on collaborations, the aesthetics of ambient music, the cultural impact of streaming platforms, and the challenges and possibilities posed by artificial intelligence.
Kasar’s reflections reveal a vision of music grounded in human presence and intuitive creation, yet deeply attuned to technological and spatial possibilities—where composition, sound design, and performance converge into a fluid, embodied process of listening, resonance, and transformation.
The Sonic Atelier #8 – A Conversation with Rafiq Bhatia (and Son Lux)
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, performance, production, and technology.
This interview features Rafiq Bhatia, American guitarist, composer, and producer, and member of the experimental trio Son Lux. Bhatia’s work dissolves the boundaries between jazz, electronic, and contemporary classical music, exploring sound as a sculptural and spatial material. His practice embodies a deep integration of composition, production, and performance—where the studio becomes an instrument, and the act of shaping sound is inseparable from the act of composing.
In the conversation, Bhatia reflects on the interdependence between the roles of composer, performer, and producer, on the DAW as a generative and compositional environment, and on the emergence of sonic identity through timbre, space, and texture. He discusses collaboration within Son Lux, his process of scoring for film, and the relationship between abstraction and precision in communicating musical ideas to orchestras and ensembles.
Bhatia’s reflections reveal an artistic vision in which technology and human expression coexist symbiotically: music as a living, evolving ecosystem of gestures, resonances, and spaces—an art of listening, translation, and transformation.
The Sonic Atelier #6 – A Conversation with Bryan Senti
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology.
This interview features Bryan Senti, American composer, violinist, and producer, whose work bridges classical tradition, Latin American heritage, and cinematic experimentation. His music, ranging from solo albums such as Manu to film scores and collaborative projects, combines impressionistic harmony, acoustic warmth, and electronic texture, shaping a distinct post-classical voice that is both intimate and expansive.
In the conversation, Senti reflects on the integration of composition and production within the digital environment, the evolving relationship between notation and sound, and the ways in which tools like the DAW and immersive formats such as Dolby Atmos redefine musical form and spatial perception. He also discusses authorship in film music, the ethics of technology, and the need to preserve a human, performative presence in an increasingly algorithmic landscape.
Senti’s reflections reveal a vision of music as a living craft, an art of listening, shaping, and reimagining sound, where composition becomes a dialogue between emotion, material, and space.
The Sonic Atelier #5 – A Conversation with Eydís Evensen
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology.
This interview features Icelandic composer and pianist Eydís Evensen, whose work bridges classical tradition, improvisation, and post-classical minimalism. Her music draws on the landscapes of her homeland, translating memory, nature, and emotion into a cinematic and introspective sound world. In the conversation, Evensen reflects on the hybrid role of today’s composer, the fluid boundaries between writing, producing, and performing, and the ways in which technology and collaboration shape her creative process.
Evensen’s insights reveal a practice rooted in both discipline and intuition, a music that moves between solitude and dialogue, the organic and the digital, embodying a poetic vision of creation where sound becomes a mirror of place, memory, and human resilience.
The Sonic Atelier #4 – A Conversation with Iosonouncane
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology.
This interview features Iosonouncane (Jacopo Incani), who reflects on the influences that shaped his formation, the balance between composition, production, and mixing, and the challenges of navigating today’s algorithm-driven music industry. He also discusses his approach to film scoring, the role of spatialization as a compositional parameter, and his views on new technologies such as artificial intelligence and immersive formats. His insights highlight the tensions between experimentation and market logic, as well as the need to preserve complexity and diversity as essential values in contemporary music-making.
The Sonic Atelier #3 – A Conversation with Federico Albanese
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology. This interview features Federico Albanese, who reflects on his formation, his approach to integrating sound design and production into the act of writing, and his perspective on the transformations of today’s recording industry and streaming platforms. His insights shed light on central issues such as hybridity, authorship, and the value of craftsmanship in contemporary music-making.
The Sonic Atelier #2 – A Conversation with Robot Koch
(2025)
author(s): Francesca Guccione
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition continues the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer today. Through a Q&A format, the project examines how contemporary creators integrate composition, production, performance, and technology into their artistic practice.
This interview features Robot Koch, an award-winning composer, producer, and performer whose work spans electronic music, orchestral writing, and immersive audiovisual performance. Koch reflects on his hybrid identity as a creator, discussing the interplay between writing and production, the role of technology as an expressive tool, and the potential of spatial audio and immersive formats. The conversation also addresses the transformations of the music industry, the impact of artificial intelligence, and the importance of authenticity and craftsmanship in the creative process.
On Sworld: Report and reflections on an artistic research into how audio can evoke human experiences of absence, ghosts and lost memories, explored through performance and composed walks
(2025)
author(s): Alexander Holm
published in: Rhythmic Music Conservatory, Copenhagen
Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.
ENHEAR
(2022)
author(s): Carolina Jinde
published in: Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH)
ENHEAR
a way of being
a state of mind
a field of enquiry
exploring the creative and collaborative potentials of sound centric strategies in film and media-based contexts
The term enhear invites an approach to research, art practice, sound studio and world that is comprehensively aural. It proposes listening as both act and role; listening as a present tense, continual and continuous co-creation of the inter-relational spaces we all share. Drawing on the specific expertise and orientation of the sound engineer in film and media-based production, the research unfolds as a series of interrelated experiments and reflections, exploring enhear via a diverse range of artistic approaches, collaborative methods and pedagogical practices. Each sub-project brings particular attention to the auditory perspective, a radically underutilised element within the visually dominated context of film and media. This project contends that consciously incorporating attentive and inclusive listening practices into the lifecycle of creative processes will make considerable artistic, ethical and practical contributions to film and media-based productions; further utilising the expertise, raising the profile and expanding the practices of the sound engineer.
Using Participatory Visualization of Soundscapes to compare Designers’ and Listeners’ Experiences of Sound Designs
(2018)
author(s): Iain McGregor
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
There are numerous rules and well-established guidelines to help designers with the visual appearance of interactive technologies. In contrast, when it comes to the use of sound, there is a paucity of practical information regarding design for euphony, excepting musical composition. This paper addresses this hiatus by describing a theoretically based, practical method for evaluating the design of the auditory components of interactive technologies and media. Specifically, the method involves eliciting the auditory experiences of users of these technologies and media and comparing them with what the sound designers had intended. The method has been comprehensively tested in trials involving 100 users (listeners), and the results have been described as “useful” and “invaluable” by a group of 10 professional sound designers.
Alarming Atmospheres - Embodied Sound Habituation as Design Strategy in a Neuro-Intensive Care Unit
(2018)
author(s): Marie Koldkjær Højlund
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
Nurses working in the Neuro-Intensive Care Unit at Aarhus University Hospital lack the tools to prepare children for the alarming atmosphere they will enter when visiting a hospitalised relative. The complex soundscape dominated by alarms and sounds from equipment is mentioned as the main stressor. As a response to this situation, our design artefact, the interactive furniture Kidkit, invites children to become accustomed to the alarming sounds sampled from the ward while they are waiting in the waiting room. Our design acknowledges how atmospheres emerge as temporal negotiations between the rhythms of the body and the environment in conjunction with our internalised perception of the habituated background. By actively controlling the sounds built into Kidkit, the child can habituate them through a process of synchronising them with her own bodily rhythms. Hereby the child can establish, in advance, a familiar relationship with the alarming sounds in the ward, enabling her to focus later more on the visit with the relative. The article discusses the proposed design strategy behind this solution and the potentiality for its use in hospital environments in general.
"Hope is a muscle tht allows us to connect"
(last edited: 2024)
author(s): Eleni Palogou and Tamara van der Laarse
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Inspired by Bjork's lyrics (Atopos), 'Hope is a muscle that allows us to connect,' Eleni and Tamara collaboratively shape this project. Treating hope as a resilient and adaptive muscle, they explore through photography, scenography, sound, music, and light. Nostalgically embracing childhood memories with a gentle retro vibe, they gently unveil enduring fragments of hope. Eleni Palogou, as a scenographer, weaves visual narratives, while Tamara, as a sound artist, complements the installation with an ambient sound piece crafted from various recordings of memories. Together, they enrich this exploration of quiet sources of hope that persist even in the darkest corners of our times.
This exposition is part of the series The Sonic Atelier – Conversations with Contemporary Composers and Producers, dedicated to exploring the evolving role of the composer in the twenty-first century. Through a Q&A format, the project investigates how contemporary creators inhabit hybrid identities at the intersection of composition, production, performance, and technology. This interview features Federico Albanese, who reflects on his formation, his approach to integrating sound design and production into the act of writing, and his perspective on the transformations of today’s recording industry and streaming platforms. His insights shed light on central issues such as hybridity, authorship, and the value of craftsmanship in contemporary music-making.open exposition comments (0)
Alexander Holm have been developing the artistic research project 'Sworld' on the APD program at RMC in Copenhagen 2021-2024. The project seeks to explore how simultaneous experience of sounds with- and without a visible cause can evoke human experiences of ghosts, absence and lost memories. The project researches and expands on composer and theorist Michel Chion's audio visual concept of Synch Points, examined through a versatile compositional praxis including choreography, text, voice, walks and live performance.open exposition comments (0)